


An Offer That You Can't Refuse

by Green_penguins



Series: Spoilers: Willie Dies [4]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Caleb Covington is a charming bastard, Caleb taking advantage of vulnerable ghosts, Fuck Caleb honestly, Gen, Willie Backstory (Julie and The Phantoms), Willie gets to skateboard again, Willie really likes to phase through people, Willie-centric (Julie and The Phantoms), all ghosts are touch starved and i'll die on that hill, touch starved, what the hell is Willie's last name, wraiths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:48:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29825886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_penguins/pseuds/Green_penguins
Summary: Willie learns more about being a ghost and realizes why everyone's so obsessed with crossing over.
Relationships: Caleb Covington & Willie, Willie/skateboarding
Series: Spoilers: Willie Dies [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2190132
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	An Offer That You Can't Refuse

The first thing Willie did after the museum was buy a skateboard. Well, he took it without their knowledge so it could be constituted as stealing, but he left cash in the register and the whole invisibility thing put a real damper on the checking out process.

Since standing and sitting were easy and he was able to pick up and move around objects with a little concentration, he wanted to try out skating and see if the same rules that seemed to apply with the ground worked with skateboards as well. He clipped on his helmet, though he supposed Angie wouldn’t fault him for not wearing it if he were dead, and set off. 

Skating was the easiest thing in the world, everything narrowed down to him and the board and the sound of concrete beneath his wheels. The living people around him probably thought it was weird that a skateboard was just rolling on its own down the street, but oddly enough, nobody seemed to notice. 

Furrowing his eyebrows in curiosity, Willie picked a person who looked like they weren’t particularly busy and skated right through them. Emily Patterson. She was a practical person and a natural worrier, used to being the impulse control for all her friends. Currently she was preparing an argument to convince her best friend not to bring water balloons to graduation. He snorted in sympathy, she didn’t envision it going well. Emily didn’t trip on the skateboard like he’d expected, it phased right along with him and he nearly fell off in surprise.

A wide grin spread across his face. “Groovy” he whispered. 

Days and nights zoomed by as he skated through the streets of LA. He found himself phasing through living people more and more often. He’d always found people interesting. He used to watch them and make up stories and personalities for them. Now he didn’t have to. 

Willie was keenly aware that he was distracting himself from the thin cord of connection that had grown on the day of his funeral. He knew instinctively that it belonged to Angie, that the faint echos of strong emotion were coming from her. If he let himself follow her around everywhere it would just be harder for the both of them to move on, but that didn’t make it any easier to ignore the distant pangs of heavy grief. They were coming less often, now. She was moving on. Without him. 

Anyways. He spent his time skating around, phasing through people as he passed them by.

Considering how many people died every day, Willie was seriously underwhelmed by the number of ghosts he ran into. 

All of the ones he met were in a rush, always chasing after something with a sort of fervent desperation that he was coming to associate with the dead. Willie managed to get a few answers out of them, and learned about unfinished business and crossing over. They all seemed overeager to cross over, he couldn’t imagine what they were in such a hurry for. They had all the time in the world. 

Then he met his first wraith.

It was a hot day, judging by the lifers he passed on the street, but he couldn’t feel it. That was one of the odd things about being a ghost: he was always vaguely cold. He ended up wearing a lot of long sleeves, which he generally avoided in life. 

As he was pondering the effects of death on thermoregulation, he came upon a young woman sitting on a bench. She was wearing a soft blue nightgown and her hair was shifting gently as if in a strong breeze. He stopped, tipping up his board and tucking it under his arm. 

“What’s popping?” He smiled, walking over and sitting on the bench next to her. She didn’t answer. Maybe she was a lifer after all. He looked over and flinched so hard he dropped his board. It rolled off down the street but he let it go, too busy staring. 

It had been four or five months since his death, and he’d seen several ghosts at that point. Some of them changed out of the clothes they’d died in, others didn’t seem to care and walked around in hospital gowns or with blood spattered over their clothes. This girl was in the second variety. Her dress was deep red over her stomach and chest, torn in places to reveal smooth bloodstained skin underneath. She’d clearly been stabbed several times. That wasn’t what shocked him though, blood had very little effect on him these days. No, the thing that shocked him was her eyes. They were pure black and swirling like inky storm clouds. Her face was pale, gaunt and dead looking in a way he’d never seen on a ghost before. She was flickering, fading in and out. Some moments she looked just as solid as Willie himself, but others she was only a vague impression of blue, red and white.

“What happened to you?” He asked her, voice shaking. She looked so… lost.

“She lost her spark.” Came a firm voice from behind him. Willie jumped and a car alarm went off a few feet away. He turned and saw a tan man in a dark cloak and tophat. Under the cloak was a dark vest with bright silver buttons and his hands rested on a silver-topped cane.

His first thought was ‘there are people who actually dress like that?’

“What do you mean, her spark?” He asked, letting his curiosity drown out his surprise. The car alarm stopped abruptly. The man tilted his head and glanced between Willie and the car questioningly. Willie shrugged.

Apparently that was enough of an answer for the moment, because Tophat came closer and sat down on the bench. “Her motivation. The reason she came back instead of just crossing over. Every ghost who comes back has something that they came back to do, but she must have lost her chance or lost her way.” He explained frankly.

“So she just… faded into this?” Willie asked, thoroughly disturbed. The man nodded in confirmation.

“They’re called wraiths,” Tophat said, something like grief in his voice “the ones caught in between. They’ve lost their connection to this world but haven’t gained what they need to cross over to the next.”

“That’s awful.” Willie breathed, turning back to the wraith beside him. She didn’t seem scary anymore, just horribly sad.

“It is.” Tophat agreed, then he brushed his hands on his coat as if he were removing a layer of dust and held out a hand. “I’m Caleb, by the way. Caleb Covington.”

Slightly startled by the sudden shift in atmosphere, Willie took it and shook tentatively. “I’m Willie”

Caleb’s hand was warm against his own, and he found himself shaking it for longer than was socially acceptable. Realizing this, he quickly dropped his hands into his lap, wishing for his skateboard to fiddle with. It appeared in his lap and he grinned, turning the wheels in his hands as he glanced awkwardly at To--Caleb. To his relief, Caleb seemed more amused than anything else.

“So I’m assuming that’s why people are always in such a rush to cross over?” He turned on the bench to face him more fully. Caleb nodded easily. “But you’re not,” Willie stated, though it sounded more like a question. The other ghost nodded again. “I think this is the longest conversation I’ve had since I died and you’re not even trying to leave.”

Caleb chuckled, “I’m in no hurry to leave this world. Nobody knows what waits on the other side, and I’m not inclined to find out.”

“Aren’t you worried you’ll end up like her?” Willie asked, gesturing vaguely to the wraith behind him.

“I’ve got strong ties to this world, in more ways than one,” Caleb answered with a wave of his hand. He paused for a moment. “I run a club where ghosts and lifers can dance and perform together.”

“Wait, seriously?” Willie said, brow creased in disbelief. “How does that even work?”

“Why don’t you come and find out?” Caleb invited with a charming smile. He pulled a glittering slip of paper from his coat pocket and handed it over. Willie took it. “See you there.” He said, and vanished with a soft whoosh.

Willie turned the paper over in his hands. The Hollywood Ghost Club. Huh. Interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> So to begin with I've just decided that ghosts can't feel the general temperature and climate. Like, Alex wears a hoodie and jeans jacket at the same time as Luke is wearing zero sleeves and a very thin tank top and there is no way the weather is going to accommodate both of those. Also Caleb and his seven layers of black velvet in the middle of the afternoon in California. 
> 
> Also, I think that there has to be a reason so many ghosts join the HGC. If they're going to sell their souls to party forever, there has to be a reason they can't just party by themselves without losing ownership of the one thing they actually have. Since we haven't seen or heard about anyone crossing over, we don't really know what kinds of unfinished business people have. Are they continuous things like performing every night or are they a single event or action that needs to be accomplished? If the boy's unfinished business actually was playing the Orpheum, what would happen to them if the Orpheum closed? Thus I made wraiths. Ghosts who are unable to complete their unfinished business and who have nothing left to connect them to the land of the living. It's actually like really sad to think about, I'm sorry.
> 
> As for why Caleb wants Willie specifically in his club --going as far as to approach him personally-- we know that Caleb is interested in ghost powers or "magic", as he likes to call it. We know that Willie has Technokinesis, and in Skating in Traffic is Bad, other ghosts take notice of that and probably report back to Caleb, so he came over to check it out. I don't know if any of the other ghosts in his club have abilities or if he is equally involved with all of them, but he seems particularly invested in Willie in canon. 
> 
> I might add another chapter here where Willie actually goes to the glub for the first time, but at the same time I don't think it's super nessecary. Willie is starved for interaction and hugs and is now terrified of never finding his unfinished business and turning into a wraith. The HGC is filled with very touchy ghosts and bright lights and music.  
> I think it's fairly self explanatory, but I'll write it if you guys want it so yell at me in the comments if you wanna see Willie meeting the other ghosts.


End file.
